WASHINGTON, DC - President-elect Barack Obama has selected a deputy mayor of Los Angeles to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, transition officials said Wednesday. On the same day, he also put in motion plans to announce his top pick for Energy Secretary.
Nancy Sutley is the first prominent member of the gay and lesbian community to earn a senior role in the Democrat's new administration.
With many of his top White House and Cabinet posts filled, Obama now is focusing on fleshing out his natural resources and environment team, and could formally introduce his choices for interior secretary, energy secretary and environmental protection agency chief within weeks if not days.
Two transition officials disclosed Sutley's selection on the condition of anonymity because Obama had not yet made the announcement.
Sutley supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic primary and was a member of her Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender steering committee.
The deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles and the mayor's representative on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Sutley has a long record of working on environmental and natural resources policy.
She previously served on the California State Water Resources Control Board, which is responsible for protecting water quality and resources throughout the state, and was the energy adviser to former Gov. Gray Davis. During President Bill Clinton's administration, Sutley was an EPA official, including being a special assistant to the EPA administrator in Washington.
Obama has chosen much of his cabinet, with the most prominent positions — treasury, justice, state and defense — already filled, and he is now turning to other posts. He is expected to officially name former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle as his secretary of health and human services as early as this week.
Obama, according to media reports, also intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Dr. Steven Chu.
